“Why?” I say, so quietly that it comes out sounding like a tiny, tired sigh. “Nobody wants to be mediocre.” Her shadow on the ceiling is monstrous, a witch in profile.”

“Lillian was always so good at treating everything like a test, like some kind of game where the prize was shiny and untouchable. Perfection. She wanted me to back off, butt out, stop trying to control her life. And she wanted me to save her.”

“Her voice was like loneliness. It was regret. She sang about a past you couldn't get out of and didn't want.”

“I looked at the ground and the dark, drizzling sky and pretty much anyplace that wasn't her. "I like you. A lot." When I finally glanced at her, my face was hot and it was hard to keep looking.She squinted up at me. Then she crossed her arms. "This is a really inappropriate place to be having this conversation.""I know. I like you anyway."Saying it a third time was like breaking some kind of spell. Her face went soft and far away."Don't say that unless you mean it.""I don't say anything I don't mean.”

“I wanted to tell her that I loved her, and not in the complicated way I loved our parents, but in a simple way I never had to think about. I loved her like breathing.”

“I walk the three blocks to the school slowly, like if I’m not careful of every step, every tiny movement, I will lose my grip on gravity and go flying up into the stratosphere.”

“From the window, I watch the city and the freeway. In the distance, the sky-rises look like mystic spires, unbearably close and far. I want to pick them up and eat them. I want to scream out loud sometimes, but I never do.”